Another of the excellent ship monographs in the Profile Morskie series is this volume on the French Fanatasque Class destroyer Le Terrible. Judging by the book's title, there will be a second volume on another ship of this class.
Born in the era of the era of the super-destroyers, the Fantasques were the pride of the French destroyer navy, and for all of their active life were the fastest destroyers afloat. However they were also prone to machinery problems, which impaired their effectiveness. Armament consisted of five 5.5", four 3mm AA, four 13mm AA, nine 21" TT and up to 50 mines.
Two of the class were lost in WW2: L'Indomptable was scuttled at Toulon in November 1942, while L'Audacieux was sunk by Allied bombers at Bizerta in 1943. The remaining four ships served with the Allied navies and survived the war, the last being Le Malin which was broken up in February 1964.
At some point within the last five volumes there has been a change in presentation of this series. The books I have up to No.20 in the series are all 8x11 staple bound volumes, this one is 6.5" x 9.5" and is solid spined. If there were no plans inside I would welcome the change, however it is the plans that make the series, and to make efficient use of them one will be required to flatten the spine. There are 23 photos included, most are either 1/2 or full page. Unfortunately all of them are washed out and could stand an increase in the contrast .. for my own use I would scan and edit the photos to improve their appearance.
As mentioned above it is the plans that these volumes are best known for, and in this regards No.26 is as good as the others. The earlier volumes include 1/400, 1/700 and frequently 1/200 plans of the ships included as foldouts. this time around there are 1/400 plans included as a separate page (as is a coloured profile of the ship), there are 25 pages of 1/100 detail drawings of all aspects of the ship. These are repeated on one page of 1/700 details.
Conclusion
Anyone contemplating a model of one of these ships could do worse than picking up this volume. Once again mine came from Lubos Vinar of VAMP Mail Order. .. although they aren't listed on his website, he can special order them.
